Mesmeris (25 page)

Maybe when the slip was right, maybe then I’d remember. I was going to wet it some more, but the nurse came, tutted, and dried the only right bit of the slip. So everything was ruined.

She took me outside for a little while, but she shivered the whole time, and hugged her arms, and looked cross. Then she wanted to go inside. I didn’t, but if I made a fuss, then she wouldn’t let me out later, and I wouldn’t see the sunset.

The doctor came later. He sat and stared at me, and I stared back. Perhaps it was a test, to see who looked away first. If it was, I won. He didn’t seem to mind. He wrote something down on his chart, and then he watched my hands, so I kept them still, even though it was difficult, because everything kept twitching, because I had a plan to make myself better, and he was spoiling it.

As soon as he’d gone, I tipped a glass full of water onto the front of my slip, but most of it missed, and spilled onto the floor, so I took the slip off and put it in the sink and ran the cold tap over it. Then I put it on again and the slip looked right, all dark and stiff and wet but I still didn’t feel right. I stood by the open window and the cold wind blew in. That room was always too hot.

The sun moved lower in the sky. My breath looked like smoke, like mist – mist over a river. But there was no river any more. Not any more.

A key turned in my door so I threw on my negligee. It was surprising how quickly I could move when I wanted to. Not as quickly as I used to, though. I could definitely remember running through streets, up steps, filthy and grey, with someone lovely, so lovely.

The nurse came in just as I covered my soaking slip, but the water began to seep into the silk negligee, making it dark and wet too so I put my Parka on over the top. I was lucky, the nurse was the dim one, the one who couldn’t care less. She led me out of the room. I couldn’t wait to get outside. The water ran down my legs and into my slippers.

Outside, the cold air made me shiver and I smiled and then laughed, because my teeth made a funny noise when they banged together. My whole body shook and I knew I was getting better. We went to the usual bench but I didn’t sit down in case I left a wet patch on the wood, and so I stood next to her, while she sat and lit a cigarette. She didn’t even look at me. I held my mouth slightly open, so she couldn’t hear my teeth chattering. It annoyed some people, I knew, that sound of teeth clanging together. Then she got her mobile phone out of her pocket and rang someone and started talking, so I wandered off and opened the front of my Parka, so the cold air could reach me. I felt much better, much better than I had for a long, long time.

I looked back at the nurse. She laughed and said something into her phone, and lifted one leg in the air and smoothed her tights. I walked into the copse of trees. She couldn’t see me, so I took off my Parka and hung it on a branch, and I felt the icy wind blow the wet silk onto my body. It felt so good. I walked on, but then I remembered the photograph, so I had to go back and get it, and I could hear the stupid nurse still babbling and laughing, so I walked back into the trees. I came to a little stream, only a trickle really, and it was babbling too, over the stones, and, at the edges, ice had formed, shiny crystals of beautiful white ice. I wanted to feel the water flowing over my toes, but I didn’t want to get into trouble when I went back. I didn’t want to be kept inside, in that stinky, musty, horrible room, and so I took my slippers off, so they wouldn’t leave wet marks on the floor.

I stepped into the water. It ran over my toes. The ache went up my calves to my knees. The stones were sharp, they hurt my feet but that was okay, that was right.

I took my negligee off and lay it carefully over a stone and watched the water run over it, and the darkness creeping up the fabric. What was that? Then I remembered - osmosis. The silk had dried a little and now the water was climbing up by osmosis. I was remembering more all the time. I had found my own cure, and didn’t need all those tablets, and injections, and blood tests. All I needed was to be cold and wet. It was all so easy, really - so easy. I was feeling a lot better, but wasn’t quite there yet. I needed to be colder, wetter, needed to feel the icy water running over my scalp. That would cure me once and for all, make me normal again, so I could feel again and remember. The water wasn’t deep enough to drown me. It was safe.

I went to lie down but something stopped me and then I was in the air and up over somebody’s shoulder, looking at his back. White coat – a doctor then. He put me on my feet on the bank and took my Parka from the branch. He had dark hair like the boy in the photograph. He looked a lot like him but it wasn’t him. I knew him though – from that time, the forgotten time. I ran for the water again but he caught me, pushed my arms roughly into the sleeves of my coat and zipped it up. All the time he was talking and I could tell he was annoyed by the way his voice hit my eardrums, the way his mouth snapped shut between the words. Then he lifted me over his shoulder again and ran, and my chin banged, bump, bump, bump into his back and I bit my tongue.

He ran back to the hospital grounds and he shouted and I saw the nurse’s legs as she jumped to her feet. She ran after us, towards the hospital, babbling again in a wheedling, stupid voice. The doctor opened the door of a black car and bundled me into the passenger seat. He turned and shouted something at the nurse. I was dripping water onto the floor of his car and I knew I was making the seat wet too and I wondered if he’d be angry, when he realised. He got in next to me and started the engine and I watched his face. The nurse stood by the gates. She looked out of breath. I thought she would stop this doctor taking me away but instead she punched a number into a pad set in the pillar and the gates opened and we drove out. I looked back as we drove away and saw two people running from the hospital, waving their arms. The nurse stood there with her mouth hanging open. She looked really thick, standing there, with her stupid mouth open and her eyes. Then we rounded a corner and I couldn’t see her any more.

The doctor had the heater on full blast so the car felt steamy and airless. I wanted to open the window but couldn’t find the control. He looked at me and said something. When I saw his face full on, I felt a pain in my chest so I looked away, watched the countryside rush past. He spoke every now and then. I didn’t bother to look at him. He made no sense. I held on tight to the photograph, had it crumpled up in my fist. No way was this doctor stealing my photograph.

CHAPTER THIRTY

It was beginning to get dark. We parked outside a church. I knew the church, knew it well. The doctor leaned over, pulled my arm straight and plunged a needle into my vein. I was so surprised, I just watched him as he emptied it into my arm. He took it out, pressed on the wound for a second, then threw the needle into the back seat. He got out of the car and took his white coat off. Then he put on a long, leather coat instead. He opened my door and took my arm so I got out. I wasn’t really dressed for church, not without slippers. The thought occurred that maybe he wanted to marry me and that’s why he’d brought me there. As we walked through the lych gate, I looked around for some flowers because everyone knows you have to have a bouquet when you get married.

I spotted some daffodils under the trees. He tried to hold onto me but I wriggled out of his grasp and ran to the flowers. I only managed to pick three before he stopped me – and one of those was only the head with no stalk. Not much of a bouquet, but when I held the three flowers together, it looked pretty enough. If I held it in front of me, maybe nobody’d-notice I didn’t have a wedding dress.

I wasn’t so sure I wanted to marry him anyway because he looked so cross and didn’t seem to like me that much. Suppose it didn’t matter. At least I was out of that hospital, out of that room.

He gripped my elbow so hard, it hurt. I couldn’t push his hand away because either I’d drop the photograph or I’d drop the flowers and then where would we be?

At the door of the church, we stopped. He looked more than nervous. He looked afraid, which made me laugh. He shook his head and closed his eyes like he thought I was stupid – or mad.

And then I heard it – a cry of pain and a thud – from inside the church. That wasn’t right. Shouldn’t they have been playing music or something? Another cry – of anger this time – fury and rage. And I knew that voice and something inside me clicked, switched on. That voice – that voice I loved.

My hand shook on the door handle and my chest was tight and hurting with fear. I turned the handle and pushed the heavy oak door open.

And there he was – my love, naked, standing over my father who lay slumped in one of the choir stalls.

‘Jack.’

He didn’t hear me because he was shouting. I understood the words and I remembered.

‘Do you know what I did?’ Jack’s spittle sprayed Dad’s face. ‘With this?’ He pointed at his body. ‘With this?’

Dad didn’t move, didn’t flinch.

‘Jack,’ I said.

They both looked at me.

Dad’s eyes widened. ‘Stay there, Pearl.’ His voice shook.

Jack smiled. ‘There she is.’ He was pleased to see me, at least. ‘There’s my girl.’

‘Stay right where you are, Pearl,’ Dad said.

Jack’s smile widened. ‘Don’t listen to him. Come here,’ he said. ‘Come on. I’ve got something for you.’

I shook my head. He didn’t sound right, didn’t sound like him. I turned back to the door but it had closed behind me and Art had gone.

‘Come on, baby,’ Jack said. ‘You know you like it.’

Dad shook his head, his eyes frantic.

‘What’s the matter?’ Jack said. ‘Don’t want daddy to know what you did?’ He laughed one short bark and then his mouth twisted. ‘Come here, you bitch.’

I stared at him. Except it wasn’t him. ‘I love you,’ I said.

‘Come here,’ he screeched. ‘Come here, you fucking whore – Come here now.’ His face contorted in fury. ‘Let me . . .’ Foam spat from his mouth. ‘Let me . . .’ and then his body flexed and writhed and he opened his mouth wide and let out the most almighty roar that echoed from the walls, the floor, the ceiling. His body pulsated, and then the roar ended as vomit shot out of his mouth. It spewed out again and again and again, all over my father. It hit the floor, the walls, the choir stall. The smell was like nothing I’d ever smelled before, like burning bile, bitter and acrid. Jack kept retching over and over, until he collapsed onto the floor.

I moved forward but Dad held his hand up. ‘No. Stay there.’

For a few moments, there was silence. Jack sat up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked calm, exhausted, his eyes huge and dark.

‘Are you all right to continue?’ Dad said.

Jack nodded. Dad stood up, one hand on his back as though he was weary, aching. He smiled at me. ‘It’s okay now, Pearl.’ He held out his hand and pulled Jack to his feet.

Jack laughed – the wrong laugh. I was about to shout something, a warning, because I knew that wasn’t Jack’s laugh but Dad wasn’t looking and he didn’t see Jack’s face. Then it was too late because Jack hit him and Dad was on the floor and he wasn’t moving.

I ran forward, then stopped as Jack roared again. He swept his arm across the altar, sent the chalice bouncing across the sanctuary. The glass jugs crashed onto the floor, shattered. Wine and water splashed over the walls, over the floor, over my father. Dad’s eyes opened. He looked dazed.

Jack crouched next to him, with that smile, the one I knew too well. ‘Now,’ he brushed Dad’s hair back, spoke in his calm voice, the reassuring one, ‘I’m going to kill you – I’m going to spill your fucking blood all over your precious altar. And then,’ he looked up at me, eyes evil, ‘then I’ll have your daughter.’

‘Go, Pearl.’ Dad raised himself on his elbow. ‘Run. Go and get help.’ Blood ran into his eyes. He wiped it away. ‘Run, Pearly.’

No time to get help. Dad would be dead by the time I got back. I held up the photo, straightened it out, waved it in the air. ‘Remember this, Jack? You gave it to me – remember?’

Jack ignored me. He smiled at Dad. ‘Let’s get you up on that altar, shall we?’

I remembered something Art had done, a long time ago, before I was ill. Something he said to get Jack’s attention. ‘John,’ I said.

His head snapped around, eyes blue, so blue, so sad.

I moved nearer, held out the photo so he could see it. ‘Remember this? Your mother gave it to you, remember?’

His sneer faltered. His gaze shifted from the photo to me and back again, bewildered. Then he looked around as though seeing the church, the altar, the chaos for the first time.

Dad inched away from him, held onto the pulpit and dragged himself to his feet.

‘It’s all right, Jack,’ I said. ‘It’s okay.’ Then I saw the body in the corner – the blood down the wall, the cassock – Andrew.

Jack’s eyes followed my gaze. ‘Did I . . .?’

‘It’s all right, Jack,’ I said again. ‘It wasn’t you.’

Dad touched Jack’s elbow, a wary touch, almost cringing in expectation of another blow. ‘Are you ready to go on?’

Jack nodded.

Dad put an arm around his waist and helped him to the front of the altar. Jack looked so thin, ill and fragile, incapable of harming anyone. He knelt slowly, gasping as each knee touched the floor.

Dad put his hands on Jack’s head. ‘Begone Satan,’ he said. ‘Give place to Christ, in whom you have found none of your works.’

Jack groaned and raised his eyes to the altar. Tears ran down his face. I wanted to hold him, to stop him crying.

‘From the snares of the Devil, deliver him, Oh Lord!’

Jack tried, blindly, to get to his feet but his body convulsed. He fell to his knees again, and cried, howled – a grating, terrible sound. I ran to him and hugged his back, hugged those weeping scars, felt his body twitch and writhe in my arms.

Dad made the sign of the cross on Jack’s forehead.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Dad, stop it – Look at him.’

Holy water hit my arms. ‘Dad!’

‘It’s over,’ Dad said.

I turned Jack to face me, pulled his head to my breast, kissed his head. ‘It’s all right. It’s all over.’ I kissed his face, his eyes. I wiped his hair back from his forehead, kissed his lips. ‘Everything’s all right now.’